


Though The Truth May Vary

by thepretender501



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe
Genre: Fluff, Jealousy, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Not Beta Read, Open Relationship, flangst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-23
Updated: 2012-08-23
Packaged: 2017-11-12 17:50:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/494017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepretender501/pseuds/thepretender501
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And Steve wasn’t an addict. He could quit Tony anytime he wanted. He just didn’t want to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Though The Truth May Vary

**Author's Note:**

> Steve/Tony is the main pairing. I own nothing. I just like to play with them. This is mature, not explicit at all. It hasn't been beta read so all mistakes are mine and my own.

The rules of relationships were weird these days. The first time Steve realized he had feelings for Tony he’d watched Tony and Rhodey in the common room. It was a rainy night and Steve couldn’t sleep. He got tired of staring outside only to find nothing familiar and he walked to the common room so he could numb his thoughts in late night television. When he got there he found the television was already on and Tony and Rhodey were on the couch. Nobody was watching though. Tony had Rhodey’s head between his legs and his head bobbed back and forth. Tony was spread out, his head thrown back, his eyes were squeezed shut and he was whispering obscenities, things Steve’s mother would slap him for if she even heard them said in his presence. 

Steve leaned against the wall and watched. He’d never seen Tony like this, just wracked with need. It was paralyzing. Before Steve knew what he was doing he was touching himself, biting his lip so he wouldn’t groan, holding his breath, so it wouldn’t become ragged and loud. 

Then he heard something he didn’t expect: his name. He thought he’d been caught and he stumbled backwards a bit but Tony’s eyes were still shut and Rhodey’s head was still moving. Tony kept whispering it like a litany, like a prayer till his body started to arch up, till nothing he said made sense anymore.  
Tony groaned loudly and Rhodey followed suit. 

Then Rhodey sat up, licked his lips and gazed at Tony. “You want him that much? Jesus, Tony. Does that take the edge off?” 

Tony nodded, blinking. His breath came out short and shallow. Then he knelt between Rhodey’s legs to return the favor. 

Steve took several steps back before he turned and ran to his bedroom. He might have stood against the door shoved his pajama pants down and touched himself till he came, twice, before falling on his bed. But nobody had to know. The rain had stopped by the time he finished and he fell asleep fitfully. 

Three days later, Steve agreed to accompany Tony to some art opening. Tony stayed in his personal space the whole time, rested his palm on Steve’s back, even kissed him on the cheek once. It was enough to fuel the tabloids. The last thing Steve needed was _Iron man gets frisky with Captain America_ headlines. The team was already a massive PR nightmare at least that’s what Fury said. Unless the headlines were true, unless Tony really wanted to get frisky with him, in which case Steve wouldn’t mind the headlines as much as Fury would, but that was impossible. Tony lived to flirt and he’d been dancing around Steve for months. Frustrated, Steve dragged Tony to the bathroom. “I don’t understand,” he snapped. “What the hell are you trying to do?”

“You,” Tony said. 

“Huh?” Steve felt his face turn red. 

“I watched you, watching Rhodey and I the other night. I’m a better spy than you are and I’ve got Jarvis on my side,” Tony said. He was now entirely in Steve’s personal space. 

“No. If you were a better spy you wouldn’t have told me you were watching.” Steve stepped back until he was against the wall. It felt like Tony was sucking all the air out of the room. “Spies are supposed to be good at keeping secrets.” 

“Touché,” Tony said. “Can you keep one now?” 

Steve nodded and Tony started sucking and nibbling at his throat. Steve swallowed and closed his eyes. His head fell backwards against the wall and it was already too much and Tony had hardly touched him. “What—what secret?” Steve whispered. 

“Tell me what turned you on that night?” Tony’s heated breath ghosted along his throat. 

“I—I don’t know, you? You were—you looked so lost in pleasure and I guess I kind of got lost too—Tony, what are you--?” 

“Shh. I want to tell you a secret now.” Tony stood on his toes and whispered in Steve’s ear. His hands were on either side of the wall.  
If Tony begged Steve to drag him into the nearest stall and fuck him silly, well that doesn’t mean Steve did just that. And if Steve did just that, he didn’t think it was really anybody’s business. 

After that night, Tony started sneaking into Steve’s bed every night. It got to the point where everyone knew but nobody said anything about it. And still Tony wouldn’t make it all official, because it was just sex after all. Sex doesn’t make someone your boyfriend.  
Steve was okay with that because it was mind numbing sex and every night Tony was in his in his bed, which was every night, Steve didn’t stay awake watching the rain and panicking when he didn’t recognize his city. 

Tony didn’t keep it in bed, though. That was one of the hardest things for Steve to get used to. They’d be flying home from one of Tony’s business conventions; Steve half asleep, book in hand and Tony sipping a martini. Their eyes would meet and Tony would get up and straddle Steve’s lap. And so Steve became a part of the mile high club, several times, according to Tony. That was okay because Tony owned the plane, and maybe the limo was okay too and the cars for the same reason. The lab was fair game too. Tony shooed Steve out most of the time though. “If my work gets me hard and you get me hard I swear I’ll never get another thing done,” He had said. 

Tony did not own the backrooms of fancy restaurants, the couches in some snooty lounges, or even the room aboard the helicarrier where they fucked after debriefing sessions. Those were some of the best times; coming down from the adrenaline rush and panic of battle. Steve was grateful Tony was still breathing and walking around and he kissed every bruise gently. Tony had this thing, this fetish where he really admired Steve’s bravery. A lot. On his knees. 

It all started to feel like too much.

Steve felt more than a little bit for Tony and he knew Tony felt it too. When they weren’t fucking Steve was still next to, inside of Tony in some way. Natasha joked she was starting to see them as one person. Steve laughed even though his throat hurt a little. 

Tony curled his fingers into Steve’s hair one morning and said something that brought everything to another level. 

“Promise again that you won’t be mad. It’s just a question. Nothing is happening without your say.”

“Tell me.” Steve said impatiently. 

“Phil wants to know what you’re like in bed. He asked me if I would be mad and I said no.”

Steve blinked. “Huh?”

“He wants to fuck you. Or you to fuck him. I don’t know, dear. It’s up to you,” Tony said, bluntly, folding his copy of the Daily Bugle, absently. 

Steve felt heat rising in his cheeks. Mad seemed like the most logical thing to feel right now but all Steve felt was aroused. 

“That—what? What? I can’t,” he stuttered. And it wasn’t because Phil wasn’t handsome, he was. It wasn’t even because Steve was freaked out about the hero worship thing, he wasn’t. He sort of got off on it now since Tony started calling him a hero while Steve’s legs were wrapped around him. 

“One time? That’s all he wants and I know you want it too. You flirt, Steve. It’s goddamn adorable to watch and you flirt a lot with him.” 

Tony kissed Steve then and he didn’t stop until Steve’s lips were swollen and his cock was fully hard. “What if—“ Steve gasped into Tony’s mouth. “What if I’m not as good as he—as good as he thinks I am? What if I don’t live up to his—standard of—of me?”

“Is that really what you’re worried about? His comic book interpretations of sex with Captain America? _Seriously?_ ”

Steve flushed. “Well, I mean, do you--? How do I know you won’t really be upset? You say you won’t now but if I’m intimate with someone else—“

“You’re such a boy scout, even in bed.” Tony smirked and kissed him again. “Well, for one thing I’m pushing you to do it. And I told him I wanted to watch. It’s a little arousing, you know, and you’ll hit me for saying this but I love knowing that you’ll keep coming back to me even after him. It’s my ego, okay? Just like when you flirt and I bring you to bed and fuck you extra hard. ” Tony kissed Steve’s shoulder and then slid beneath the comforter.

They didn’t finish the conversation until breakfast. 

“If I agreed to do it.” Steve started. “I’m not committing but if I agreed, how would it work?”

Tony grinned. 

A week later he was in Tony’s bed. Phil curled up next to him shuddering sort of adorably as he dozed off. Steve stood up, slightly dazed. Tony must have been in another room watching, he only kept cameras in his bedroom. Steve ran his fingers gently through Phil’s hair and walked out of the room. He found Tony in the lab with his hands down his pants, re-watching the show. Steve started to wonder when this became his life? 

“Did you like it?” Tony whispered. 

“Yeah,” Steve could barely feel his legs.

“God, yeah, you did.”

“ _Tony_ ,” Steve said it like a need, like want of air or water. 

Tony looked at him and the room shrank and Tony sat on top of the lab desk and Steve had him right there, frantic and hard and rough. It was the filthiest and hottest thing he’d ever done and that was saying something considering the things he’d done since he met Tony. 

And Steve wasn’t an addict. He could quit Tony anytime he wanted. He just didn’t want to.

A month later Loki appeared again and he’d somehow managed to rescue Thor and injure himself in the process he was kept at Headquarters in a detainment facility while he healed. Tony started whispering things to Steve. Things about what he imagined sex with a god to be like. Steve wanted to feel jealous, he was supposed to feel jealous because obviously Tony was attracted to Loki but Tony was in Steve’s arms, in his bed moaning his name. 

Steve did feel wary when Loki was moved from the facility and housed in the basement of Stark Tower while Jane and Thor worked on the portal. The week Loki was there though he and Tony fucked so passionately and so frequently that Steve was dizzy in a daze most of the time. 

Steve teased Tony with things, nonsense things, hoping it would be enough. He whispered about Loki naked about how big his cock was and what it felt like inside, about how he was probably sleeping with Thor and maybe Thor was downstairs bending him over the mattress right then. Just nonsense. Tony came and trembled, _trembled_ in Steve’s arms and whispered “I love you so much, _so much_.” And Steve knew Tony probably felt that way but he had never said it before. It was too real, too much.

Now after sex, when Tony was so pliable against him, Steve was terrified of expressing everything he felt at the moment because it was a goddamned lot. He feared it might scare Tony away. He was scaring himself. He came inside Tony and then he stayed there. He buried his face against Tony’s chest and even with his eyes closed the light of the arc reactor was blinding but Steve didn’t move. He rested against Tony’s heart and if his eyes were wet with tears and he felt overwhelmed with something, he didn’t have to share it with anybody. Least of all Tony. 

When Tony asked if he could go to Loki’s bed just to see what it was like, Steve said yes. “One time. Promise me.” He said. And he wanted to add _don’t forget about me, promise me you’ll love me after and that I’ll still be enough._ He bit his tongue though. 

“I promise,” Tony said. “One time.” He kissed Steve, squeezed his hand gently. “Do you want to watch?” 

Steve shook his head. Tony looked worried then, anxious. “I won’t do it, Steve. Unless you’re okay. Are you okay?” 

“Yes, I just—I don’t want to watch.”

Tony sat on the edge of the couch, a blank expression on his face. 

“Do you need me to watch?” Steve bit his lip because Tony was an exhibitionist. He wouldn’t do half of the things he did if no one was there to appreciate them. He’d never admitted it but Steve didn’t need him to. Steve knew him inside and out and it was scary how fast that happened.

“No, I don’t.” Tony continued to stare into space. “It’s just always better when you're there.” 

Steve swallowed. “There are cameras in the basement, right?”

“Not in the bedroom. It’s okay though, I don’t need it. Are you alright though? Promise me it’s okay and that you’re not just saying this to make me happy or shut me up.”

Steve smiled and if it was forced Tony didn’t have to know. “Do it before I change my mind, Stark.” Even he was impressed with the conviction in his tone. 

That night he lay awake for the first time in months. There was a storm. Looking outside didn’t give him quite as much anxiety as before but that didn’t mean he felt it any less that night. Tony didn’t come upstairs. Not until dawn and he was rumpled and messy and dazed. He had marks on his neck and throat and collar bone and they looked like they spread all over. Steve hadn’t done that. Steve had nothing to do with that. 

Steve was only a man and despite all the alterations and improvements in his body by the serum he was still only human. Loki wasn’t. He had magic and tricks and immortality. Steve didn’t have any of that. His immortality was relative, what was seven decades to a thousand years anyway? 

Tony ran his fingers through Steve’s hair. “Okay?”

Steve nodded. “How was it?” he asked even though it was the last thing he wanted to know. 

“Different.”

“He’s gone?”

“Back to Asgard? Yeah. Do you want details?”

Steve was torn because he needed to know what happened for his peace of mind but jealousy was already nesting in his brain. 

He nodded slowly and Tony started talking about how he’d ended up the mess of a man sitting on the edge of Steve’s bed. As he spoke Steve started feeling things and the only way he could describe it later was primal, animalistic. 

Tony wasn’t Loki’s. Tony didn’t belong to anybody but him. Loki could mark him and fuck him and make him see stars but Loki didn’t own him. Tony had a choice and when he chose Steve wanted to make sure it was him, every time. Then Steve might’ve spread Tony out on the bed before he finished his story and maybe used the fact that Loki had just come inside him as lube for when he did the same. Maybe it happened twice and in the end Tony was so boneless he couldn’t crawl back to Loki if he wanted to. 

When they woke up several hours later to Jarvis pointing out that it was 4 p.m. Tony rolled over and rested on Steve’s stomach. “Steve.”

“Mmhm.”

“You were jealous, weren’t you?” 

Steve took a breath and Tony rose and fell with his chest. “A little.”

“You brat, you should’ve told me. That could’ve ruined things, you know. Don’t get too introverted on me. I mean I know that’s who you are but I need you to tell me things. I don’t always notice things.” He traced circles, absently around Steve’s nipples with his fingertips. It tickled a bit and was arousing in a faraway kind of way. 

Steve shifted slightly. “You let me sleep with Phil; I was just returning the favor.” 

“Nope.” Tony sat up suddenly. “That’s not how this works; you do what you’re comfortable with, only that. I want you to be happy here and like I said I don’t always notice things like that.”

Steve stared at the sheets because he still felt things, so many things and he didn’t know how to say them out loud to anyone, especially Tony so he whispered. “I want you to be happy too.”

“God, you—you really don’t notice that I’m a kid in a candy store with you?”

Steve rubbed his eyes and sat up. “God, not just sex Tony.” And Steve felt silly because it’d been just sex for months now but in between that there’d been dinners at fancy restaurants, art openings, museum visits, slow walks around the city after midnight. There were long car rides upstate and vacations all over the world. They’d saved the world countless times and shared so many of those highs and lows. There were movies and shows and plays and private looks and inside jokes. There were rainy afternoons when Steve painted and Tony built things and days when they did nothing at all but lie in bed and make love. _Rinse and repeat_ , as Tony liked to say. 

“That’s good too.” Tony said. “The sex is fucking good, Steve. What you just did? _So good. So hot._ I love you for other reasons too, though.”

“I love you, too.” Steve said and he swallowed because even love didn’t feel like a strong enough word. He’d never felt anything like this before. Not for Peggy, Bucky, his mom, anybody. And he loved them. He honestly loved them but this thing with Tony felt weird like maybe their souls were making love too. And Steve didn’t feel the hole in his chest where his past belonged anymore. He didn’t feel the ache in a way that was crippling and constant like before. It sounded silly and Steve didn’t dare say it out loud but that was how it felt and it was the only way he could describe it if he needed to. 

Tony smiled and rested on his pillow. “I’m begging you not to let me mess that up because I will and I won’t even notice. And it’s not because I don’t love you, it’s just those pithy little human details, my creator must have taken those out so I could remember the specific heat for every metal and alloy in my lab among other things.” 

“Like the names of every Playboy centerfold since 1967?” Steve smirked. 

“That was a hobby; forgive me for showing you how talented I am.”

Steve grinned and fell back against the bed. He closed his eyes as a comfortable silence fell. “I don’t know if I want to share anymore. I don’t regret it and I might change my mind but—not now.” 

“Deal,” Tony said. “I won’t ask again. You tell me if you want to.”

“Okay,” Steve said, he sighed and stared out the window. Tony lay on his stomach again. “It looks like it’s going to rain.” Steve said.

“Yeah, you should eat something.” Tony kissed his stomach. “You want to go for food?”

“Yeah.”

They showered and Steve tried to wash off every trace of Loki. Tony let him; he just kept his head against the granite wall while Steve washed him all over. He was uncharacteristically quiet except it wasn’t uncharacteristic at all because they’d shared a lot of moments like this. Parts of Tony no one else got to see. 

But Loki’s marks were still burned bright red into Tony’s skin and Steve hated him for it. He hated Loki for it and Tony but most of all he hated himself for letting Tony do it. 

They dressed and headed out to find food. They ducked into some nearby café when rain started to fall and found a corner booth. Tony slid gingerly inside and Steve bit back a grin as he watched.

“Don’t laugh, you did this.” Tony muttered. 

Steve grinned at him, “why would I do that?”

“Is innocent your default?” Tony took a steadying breath. 

Steve continued to grin as he glanced out the window. “Let’s eat.”

They ordered deli sandwiches and Steve tried green tea which Tony ended up finishing while Steve drank Tony’s water. The rainfall was even heavier by the time they finished. 

“We can wait,” Tony pulled out his PDA.

“Iron man is afraid of a little rain?” Steve teased. 

“I’m not. My tech is,” Tony frowned. “Very afraid.”

He followed Steve outside anyway though and they walked leisurely the couple blocks back to Stark Tower. By the time they walked inside Steve was soaked through to his sneakers. Their feet squelched as they made their way to the elevator and as soon as the door closed Tony started undressing Steve. 

“Don’t want you to catch a cold.” He said determinedly. 

Steve laughed and shoved Tony gently against the wall. “You know I’m immune to terrestrial illnesses, right?” 

“I know.” Tony grinned. 

Steve lifted Tony’s shirt over his head and his stomach turned a bit when he saw Loki’s marks still everywhere. And suddenly he couldn’t look at Tony because he couldn’t with Loki’s marks all over him. He stared at the wall and tried to take a deep breath, he found he couldn’t. 

“What is it, honey? What are you thinking? I can’t read your mind.” Tony wrapped his arms around Steve’s waist, pressed his lips against Steve’s chin. “Tell me.”

“Nothing,” Steve whispered. 

“It’s okay, Steve, tell me. Anything. It’s easy, I’m easy, okay?” he kissed Steve, slow and calm. 

“Am I—am I enough?” Steve closed his eyes and said quietly. 

“Jesus, Steve. That's what this is?” Tony wrapped his arms around Steve’s neck. “Look at me. I’m trying to be honest with you why won’t you look at me?”  
Steve lowered his eyes so he met Tony’s gaze. 

“Yes, a million times. I’m sorry I suggested it in the first place. That didn’t feel good, did it? Fuck, Steve. Why didn’t you hit me?” Tony looked so earnest Steve couldn’t help but to smile. Tony let out a breath. “That was another first. I’m doing these things with you. Loving you, oh god, you know what I mean? You’re turning me into a grown up.” 

“Sorry--” 

“That I love you? No, that’s okay. Not a big deal. Will you kiss me at least?”

Steve smiled. “You’re insane.” But he kissed Tony anyway. It didn’t hurt much, Steve didn’t have to question it. It just felt nice and real and slightly arousing. 

If Steve hit the emergency stop button then and the elevator jammed for a half hour on the 70th floor that was one thing. If they had sex in there, in the hallway, in the gym, and in the bedroom and fell in love in between that was another thing. If they lived happily ever after, well, that was a whole nother thing entirely and maybe Steve didn’t have to tell anybody about it, because Tony already knew.


End file.
